That crab is lookin mighty tasty right now.

I hate to break it to you, but as a citizen of Gaudiguch, you might have crabs.

Everything that is morally questionable in hallifax has a perfectly logical advantage to it. Most of these fall into the category of 'if this wasn't the way it is the city would fall out of the sky'. To take a clear example, the Temporal Conclave is responsible for the temporal unity of the conduits within the city, when it is not functioning, temporal anomalies take on shapes that the Sentinels are just not equipped to deal with (as shown by the events that led to the founding of the institute). So who cares if one of the greatest temporal scientists of all time was sacrificed in order to create the conclave? It functions no worse because of it (in fact, it functions a whole lot better).

And let's be honest, everyone knows that the side effects of a frontal lobotomy are greatly exaggerated!

P.s. if you managed to find some -real- 'lolevil' without a proper logical reason, PM me and I shall make sure it is addressed. I went to great pains to make sure everything in hallifax has purpose, but that doesn't mean some things didn't slip through during the design process.

Completely disagree with the 'Hallifax/Collective is lolevil' sentiment. I think adjectives which might be more apt are 'inhuman' or 'amoral'. Not nice things, but neither are they 'evil'.

If it is done for the sake of 'Progress' or self-perpetuation, it is acceptable.

From an RP perspective, the lower castes would probably believe that they are inferior. Not to the point of being brainwashed, but they would accept their place and acknowledge the higher castes are unconditionally important.



I didn't mean it so much in a literal sense. In every org you'll find the cold and calculating, or the sunshine daisy types. I think it's perfectly acceptable to play either of those characters, which brings me to another point in general.

You don't have to base your RP around org canon. There's nothing stopping you from playing a character that doesn't quite agree with the status quo. I think people put too much value in alignments and in doing so place creative handicaps on themselves. If everyone fit the mold constantly, Lusternia would not be as fun as it is.

This was true for me at least. When Tulemrah was a commoner, she very rarely even spoke in the presence of higher ups. There was one time when another commoner was being -very- rude to Rika, and I really wanted to ask Rika why she didn't just tell him to shut up, but it wasn't my place to tell the Mayor how to act. Now that I'm a guild leader and much higher in city rank, Tulemrah's a lot more comfortable talking around others. She may not be in the higher castes herself, but she's very close, and she's friends with some who are.

This whole thread makes me want to move to Hallifax.

No.












Okay, maybe yes.

This issue normally comes up from memory when people do not/refuse to recognize the different levels people are on in the city. Without some underlying elitism and distance, there is the potential for becoming rather buddy buddy. One thing that strikes me as extremely odd is that everyone seems to ignore the mannerisms displayed by the npcs, small things like referring to people in public by title and the like can help with atmosphere.



There is an extent though, certain aspects of org rp are important and you can't really be a member of an org if you don't fit certain parts of a mold.

Vague examples would be Celestians who don't care about the light, or Gloms that don't think the wyrd is all that good. Sure you can do that, but you aren't really playing a member of that org then and the question becomes "Why are you in x org?"

Um, that's a given? There are boundaries and that goes without saying.

But you certainly don't need to be a cardboard cutout(unless that's your thing) in order to be a successful player.

Just speaking as one who did in fact play as a "Wyrd is not all" Glomdoring, there are reasons for any given character (regardless of their outlook on their current organization) to stay in that given organization. Without going into too much detail, Mael did have reasons for staying as long as he did in Glomdoring, they were by no long shot entirely rational reasons, but they were good reasons.

By the same reasoning, while Org RP is important, if the character can stand on its own without it - then it should be allowed to do so.

Same here with Llesvelt, for a long time. In fact he still considers himself a simple Military Bureaucrat and a servant to the Higher Castes.

Perhaps that is why we pair up so well

I've always disagreed with this stance for a few reasons. First if a player enjoys working with/playing with certain other players then the org's rp can take a back seat if they wish. After all, this is a business and whatever the player enjoys that keeps him or her coming back is paramount. Secondly, we all know an orgs rp can change over time. Supernal doctrines have changed in Celest, Glom has undergone quite a few changes, etc.. In addition guild/city leaders can/do change an org's rp. See Gaudiguch/Seren/etc. for example.

If you are playing a long time character, the org rp you agreed with may not be the current rp. Since a long term character likely has a great deal of money and time invested into it, they should not be required to shift their beliefs/actions, to the new paradigm if they don't choose to.

The isolated line I've bolded, suggests to me (and feel free to correct me Saran, I'm taking the comment to extreme to make a general point) that one would support a player controlled 'my way or the highway' approach to org rp. Fundamentally this would be unstable (see Gaudiguch currently), and those players who take it upon themselves to enforce rp shouldn't be surprised about blowback.

Hallifax always has been, in my eyes, the epitome of Lawful Neutral. The Judge, the Lawful society obsessed with rules, law, tradition, etc. Strict social confines, an intense and invested social policy. The law is followed because if it is not, chaos manifests.

Hallifax has made decisions during the time of the Empire that it, despite being a part of the Empire, undoubtedly wanted to hide. How would the righteous and goodly Empire, lorded over by five entities of love, kindness, hope (and righteous fire) react to some of the things they have done.

Just look at the Hallifax collegium. They're testing medicines on children like lab rats. You see the same thing in the Arthar'rt Observatory - even look back at the Empire days. They attacked Gaudiguch, throwing their own people at the Planes of Fire and Vortex to try and lock down the Eternal Flame to 'protect' them from themselves (let's just ignore the fact it will be, in a time of chaos and discord, Hallifax subjugating the culture they detest most in the Basin of Life and placing them directly under their control. Not to mention a pretty intense and powerful military move and scientific project that would lock down a Nexus of Power. And think of the power gains. Purely humanitarian? Pft. I doubt it.)

And the city's Epic Quest was designed long before the actual city. It was the basis that a lot of the culture in the city was built up from.

People keep throwing around ambiguous labels like 'good' and 'evil'. In my eyes, 'good' is ideas like love, kindness, hope, defending the innocent, etc - generally what you see in Celest. 'Evil' are the exact opposite - hate, rage, violence, pain, slaughter, despair. Things that encourage suffering simply for suffering's sake. Hallifax (nor Gaudiguch) seem like the sort of place that would do any of these. They wouldn't senselessly risk lives on a hope of saving a few kids from a burning orphanage.

In fact, I've always thought of it like the scene from 'I, Robot' - the robot saves Will Smith's character because it deemed him to be the more likely survivor (with a higher chance of survival than the drowning girl in the next car). It's very cold, very analytical, it's very machine. It's very Hallifax.

Hallifaxians eat brains?

That makes... a scary amount of sense.

The Sentinel's guild tutor is seriously a researcher that got their former personality overwritten by all of the info Hallifax had on "Being a Sentinel" being downloaded into their brain from the Transphenorex Grid. And Cririk got his conciousness uploaded into the Grid. So, yeah. Hallifaxians eat brains.

The Aeromancers just have some chick.

She's...

She's pretty cool.

It's really obvious they liked designing the aeonics stuff more than the aeromancy stuff.

Aeromancers are surprisingly one of the more stale Hallifaxian guilds.

All the other Mage guilds are built off their Elemental Lords in some way. Hallifax finds the notion silly and would rather replace them with machines. Not a lot of room for substance, there.

I'm trying! You just can't force people to participate, as much as I wish I could.